Should You Vaccinate Your Baby? (Part 1)

The debate about whether or not vaccinations are a good idea continues to go back and forth, with plenty of reasons on each side. Ultimately it’s going to come down to your own personal decision as a parent, but first it’s important to make sure you’re making an informed choice. You should also consult with medical professionals and consider the advice of your GP, but to get you started here are some of the key arguments for and against.

Reasons to say “yes”:

1) Vaccinations protect your children from getting serious illnesses. This is the most obvious benefit, as it’s the whole reason they were created in the first place. The diseases that vaccinations can protect babies and children from can range from preventable inconveniences to severe and potentially deadly illnesses.

2) Vaccinations are fast and effective. For most children and babies there doesn’t need to be a big fuss when having a jab, and it’s over in seconds.

3) The more people are vaccinated, the less chance a disease has of breaking out on a large scale. Injections to prevent infection in one person will also protect all those they later come into contact with.

4) Eventually diseases can be wiped out entirely by eliminating every known case and vaccinating everyone else. This happened with smallpox several decades ago and vaccinations against it are no longer required.

5) Vaccinations have been proven to strengthen the immune system, in the same way that it develops after coming into contact with countless bacteria and viruses on a day to day basis. Some people are concerned that an injection overloads the immune system, but in reality one jab uses less than 0.001% of the average immune system’s capacity.

6) Prevention is better than the cure. Although it’s a common saying, it certainly applies with serious diseases. Seeking treatment for an avoidable but severe condition like measles involves much higher risks than simply getting a vaccination before the infection happens.

7) All vaccinations given to babies and children in the UK go through strict and extensive testing processes beforehand, so you can be safe in the knowledge that any negative side effects are extremely unlikely and professional researchers have determined the jabs are safe.

Despite all these reasons, there are arguments against vaccinations that you should also consider. See our next blog post for a complete list of the main points to help you make your final choice.